The Early Dynastic period in Egypt: royal tombs and their dates

The frame

On the Met's timeline for Egypt, the Early Dynastic Period is dated about 3100-2649 BCE. Unlike the periods before and after it, it has no key-events entry of its own on the page, only a line in the list of periods, and the page does not list its dynasties; the Old Kingdom that follows is defined there as Dynasties 3-6. A radiocarbon study of the royal necropolis at Abydos calls the tombs of the kings of Dynasties 1 and 2 "a major source for the early dynastic period". The site follows the Met's timeline here, as for all of Egypt's periods up to the Middle Kingdom. Sources 1, 2.

Boundaries and overlaps

According to the abstract of the Umm el-Qaab study, the radiocarbon results agree with the relative archaeological order of the tombs but come out 100-150 years earlier than the historical chronology established until then. The abstract does not give the calibrated dates, so the site keeps the boundary of 3100 BCE for navigation and notes the discrepancy beside it. The cemetery itself begins before the boundary: it includes royal tombs "from Dynasty 0" and a predynastic cemetery, and according to the Met, Abydos was the burial ground of late Predynastic leaders already in Naqada III. According to UNESCO, Memphis was traditionally founded in 3000 BC as the capital of a unified Egypt, that is, within this period. At the later end, the Old Kingdom begins about 2649 BCE. Sources 2, 1, 3.

On this site

Two articles are placed in this period. "Umm el-Qaab: dating the royal tombs of Abydos" explains what the gap between the radiocarbon dates and the historical chronology means, and what the abstract does not allow one to compute. "Memphis and its necropolis: from mastaba to pyramid" is placed here because of the founding that tradition puts in 3000 BC, and also in the Old Kingdom, when the city served as administrative capital. The site has no dated museum objects from this period yet. Sources 2, 3.